There is currently a prevalent concern among the citizenry for routinely consuming not only highly nutritional foods, but also foods having low-fat and/or low-carbohydrate attributes. Unfortunately, it has become common practice for customers to frequent fast-food restaurants without appreciable regard for nutritional content, while, nevertheless, being concerned about fat and/or carbohydrate content. A similar attitude is prevalent in visits to cafeterias and other eating venues, including vending machines.
There has been a paucity of developments in restaurant context pertaining to providing customers nutrition-related feedback and suggestions for intelligent menu-ordering of food in real-time or otherwise. There has also been a paucity of improvements for such intelligent menu-ordering in a post-order time frame, wherein the customer receives specific suggestions for the next food order based upon most-recent ordering attributes.
There has also been a paucity of methodologies which have been implemented without requiring the customer to use prerequisite hardware, or without requiring the customer to review menu choices in advance. Furthermore, customers typically prefer to remain anonymous while obtaining customized suggestions for promoting good health and for generally becoming more knowledgeable regarding nutritional choices.
For instance, Brown, et al., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,618,062 and 6,646,659 disclose a method, system and program for specifying an electronic food menu with food preferences from a universally accessible database. Under the technology taught in Brown, food preferences are retrieved from a database based upon a unique customer key. The focus appears to be on incorporation of heart-healthy and otherwise healthy food to promote personal health. The customer's preferences are compared with previously specified and stored food items, requiring a customer to be identified. A customized food menu consisting of such selected food items is presented electronically to the customer.
Camaisa et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,263, teach an interactive visual ordering system having a database that stores a pictorial image for each menu item. This database also displays for each food item an enumeration of ingredients, method of preparation, and nutritional content—with the objective of rendering menu-ordering to be convenient and informational.
Accordingly, these limitations and disadvantages of the prior art are overcome with the present invention, and improved means and techniques are provided which enable customers to receive restaurant-feedback for effecting improved menu-selections that promote enhanced nutrition and good health.